My Plan for the Future of The USA
My Plan for the Future of The USA
If we do as the TEA Party wants and slashed spending and waste with the economy in the shape its in I believe it would throw us into a depression. If we all of the sudden slash the money the government is spending it would put more people in the unemployment line. If we borrowed more so the government could spend more interest rates would go up, our credit rating would drop even more which would throw us into a depression. So what do we do besides Pray?
I know this isn’t my typical article. I’m no expert, but I have run a couple of successful business’s before my accident. I know everyone who is following this crisis has an opinion. I’m not, nor will ever be a Politician, way to many skeletons in my closet from before I was Born Again. My accident however has given me a powerful advantage. Medical bills and lack of income before getting my Social Security wiped out my life’s savings. Between lack of finances and my physical condition I don’t get out a lot. I have a choice, I can spend my time setting in front of the TV, or spend my time doing things to stimulate my brain.
I choose to spend my time reading and studying. I spend many hours reading and studying my Bible, reading books, in research on the internet, and watching news and business news channels. When I first answered my call to Preach, one of my Mentors advised me to never comment publicly on politics. I know this article will draw criticism from people, but I feel someone has to put forth some real common sense solutions to our economic crisis. Most of the ideas aren’t mine. They come from a variety of different sources. I only researched many, many suggestions and compiled what I believe are the best of the best.
My “plan” will probably anger both the right and the left. My plan is probably a little center right, which is where the majority of Americans are. If you agree with the plan, put your name on it instead of mine and send it to everyone you know. Send it to your state and federal Representatives, Congress person, etc.. Send it to editors of your local news sources and to The Whitehouse! If you only agree with part of it, take out what you don’t agree with before sending it. Change it or come up with your own and send it. The main thing is GET INVOLVED! Educate yourself and hold your politicians accountable!
A. US Corporations are “sitting” on $2.5 Trillion in “off-shore” money. They won’t bring that money back to the US because of having to pay 35% taxes on it. They have already paid taxes on it to foreign countries and don’t want to be taxed again. Give them one year to bring that money home tax free, provided they spend 25% of it to hire new employee’s or buy American made equipment, or build new factories. That would put $625 Billion into the economy almost immediately!
B. Immediately open up offshore drilling and begin selling permits again. Historically simply making the announcement has caused oil prices to drop. I know this makes environmental groups upset, but would you rather the US drill who has some of the strictest EPA guidelines in the world or have other countries drill who aren’t as environmentally conscience as we are? We just loaned $1 Billion to Brazil to drill much deeper than the BP spill was!
A recent report, issued by HIS Global Insight and sister energy research firm IHS CERA, says that oil and gas companies are ready to invest, and that faster approvals by the federal government for offshore drilling could create 230,000 jobs nationwide in 2012!! The report also warns that continued slow permitting will reduce domestic oil and gas production and could drive energy companies to shift their investments to other countries, permanently shrinking the American oil industry. This is just the offshore drilling!!
According to Wharton Econometrics Forecasting Associates, development of oil reserves in the Coastal Plain of ANWAR would create as many as 736,000 domestic jobs! Most of these jobs would be high paying, good benefit jobs! Some well respected experts say doing those 2 things would create as many as 3 Million new jobs! The sale of the oil and gas leases as well as the royalties paid to the State and Federal Governments would help close budget gaps. Bringing in more oil and natural gas means more refineries must be built. ( Which brings up another problem to be addressed later.) Some of the money generated from the sale of leases and the royalties should be spent to increase the amount of Service Stations that offer propane and natural gas for vehicles. The USA is the Saudi Arabia of Natural Gas we should take advantage of this. Tax incentives should be offered to people who retro fit their auto’s to run off of propane or natural gas.
By increasing our oil and gas production we not only save our economy we stop sending trillions to countries that hate us and want to bring about our destruction.
C. The Federal Bureau of Land Management has identified 3 Million Acres of land the Government should sell. Where a lot of the land is located it may only sell for a few hundred dollars an acre, but where some of it is located it would sell for thousands of dollars an acre. If the average price per acre was $1,000.00 the sell of the land would bring in a minimum of $3 Billion!
D. Force Congress to pass the “1-cent” plan offered by Representative Connie Mack. This is the least painful of all the deficit reduction plans being talked about. If you combine his plan along with these other ideas, we could pay off the debt in a relatively short period of time and begin putting money back for some of our un-funded liabilities.
E. Start a grass roots organization to buy American. This must be a non-profit grass roots organization. It can not come from the government or we would start a trade war. Thru out History trade wars eventually spark real wars. We don’t want that! There are OVER 112,000,000 households in the USA. If each household went thru the items they purchase every month and see where they are manufactured, then exchange only $100.00 per month for US goods we would generate $ 11,200,000,000.00 in sales of American made merchandise. I’m not smart enough to translate what that would mean in jobs created, but it would have to be huge!
D. The EPA. In order for the USA to return to an economic powerhouse Congress must act swiftly to reduce the power of the EPA!! We need the EPA, I’m not suggesting doing away with it, but it has to much power. How can we allow a government agency have so much power it can cut off water to one of our most fertile farm areas in the country because of a small minnow sized fish? Put 10’s of thousands out of work, turn fertile farmland into a dustbowl all for a tiny fish?
Back when George W. Bush was President and gas prices were soaring he asked the King Of Saudi Arabia to send us more oil. The King told him it would do no good to send us more oil because our refineries were all at capacity. It takes 10 years and Millions of Dollars to get a permit to build a Refinery!!! It’s the same thing with a Nuclear Power Plant, a clean coal Power Plant. What are we thinking! We build the safest Refineries, Nuclear and Clean Coal plants in the world. I would much prefer we build them than North Korea, Iran, Russia, China all of whom are building them. When it comes to coal they don’t care if its “clean” or not!
As I stated above we need an EPA, they just don’t need to be so powerful. Congress should pass a “Rocket Docket” system for EPA lawsuits. If a group sues to try to prevent a factory, mine, power plant, oil lease, etc., it should go before a separate court designed specifically for that purpose. It should be a law requiring those cases one year to go to trial and thru the appeal process, no more! There should also be a law that says the EPA only has 6 months to approve or disapprove a permit. If they disapprove one and the company wants to appeal their decision it goes to the “Rocket Docket” process.
E. National Sales Tax. Not a VAT tax! a 1% National Sales Tax on RETAIL ONLY sales! A 1% National Retail sales tax would generate between $40-$60 Billion per year. By some estimates if you could get it enforced on the underground economy, the figure could be closer to $80- $100 Billion per year. This tax should be for only 10 years. The first 2 years the revenue should go towards rebuilding our infrastructure only. This would create jobs and provide much needed repairs to our roads and bridges. The next 5 years towards paying down our debt. The last 3 years to a Medicare Trust Fund.
F. Government Regulations. Some regulation is good. Remember when President G.W. Bush and the Republicans were calling for more oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and Barney Frank and the Democrats were saying Fannie and Freddie were sound? We need some regulation. As usual with a good thing though our government has gone overboard. We need a Congressional Panel of moderates only! Not left wing or right wing, moderates. They should evaluate government regulations and do away with any that serve no purpose except make it more difficult to start or operate a business.
G. As the economy begins to grow, and just announcing the above measures would make it grow, we need to look at the study Senator Tom Coburn commissioned on duplicate Government Agencies. As the economy grows so those job losses can be absorbed duplicates should be closed, their employee’s either transferred to departments where they are needed or let go to pursue a job in the private sector.
H. Immediate repeal of Obamacare. Obamacare is going to destroy the best healthcare system in the world, and will bankrupt this country. Private hospitals will eventually be a thing of the past if Obamacare is fully implemented. With all of the mandates in Obamacare the only way private hospitals will be able to stay in business is with government subsidies. Even before Obamacare was passed many Drs were already limiting the amount of Medicare or Medicaid patients they would see because of the low payment from them. Obamacare is going to pay even less. Even if Obamacare pays the same amount it does now, so many people are going to be added to the Government programs it will force Drs and hospitals out of business.
I go to a government run hospital, not the VA. I don’t go because I have to. I went when I had Blue Cross. I go now with Medicare. I go there specifically to see two Drs. The hospital is terrible and a sign of what is to come for everyone if Obamacare is fully implemented. I love my Drs, I love my Nurses, but the hospital is pitiful. If you get sick with a cold as I am now, you can’t get an appointment. It always takes at least 1 month to get an appointment with a family practice Dr often 90 days! A specialist takes at least 90 days. I have been waiting over 6 months for an appointment with my Orthopedic Surgeon and I still haven’t received a date! I saw him a year ago. He sent me for an MRI to see if I need knee surgery or knee replacement. He knows its torn from an MRI several years ago but at that time I couldn’t undergo surgery because of other health issues. It took them a month to get the appointment set for the MRI. They called the day before my appointment and said the MRI was down and they would reschedule as soon as it was repaired. Two months later they sent me a letter with my appointment date and time!
I showed up at my scheduled time and waited 3 hours. They called my name and sent me to Radiology, where I waited another hour. When they called my name I went back and the Tech asked how much I weighed. I told her, she then carried me to another Department to have me weighed. After weighing me she told me that even though I weighed 3 lbs under the limit, she would not perform the MRI! I would have to be referred to a private hospital for the MRI! One of my Nurses told me the Tech had no reason to not do the MRI, that radiology was simply so backed up they were looking for any reason to put patients off!
It took a month for them to process the paperwork so I could make the appointment for the MRI. The private hospital got me in 2 days later and I had the MRI. Of course it was more expensive for me and for my insurance company to have it there. That was 6 months ago, still no appointment with the Surgeon. This is the kind of service everyone but the rich will have under Obamacare. I can give you many, many more horrible examples I’ve had over the 13 - 14 years I’ve been going to that hospital. One of my Drs even asked me why since I have Insurance do I go there. He said wouldn’t send his dog there. I just smiled and said because you are here.
There is another reason I go there. This area really needs that hospital. I have insurance many of that hospitals patients don’t. The hospital is in constant need of funds. I can’t afford to donate money to them, but I can go there so they at least get to bill my Insurance company and get my co-pay.
I. NASA. As the economy gets back on track, and it will soon if we can get Congress and the Whitehouse to do the things I’ve listed we must start investing in NASA again. Many of the technological advances we all enjoy came from investments in NASA. Many of the advanced weapons that have allowed our Military to do as much as it has without a much higher casualty rate is because of technological research done by NASA. We can’t lose or privatize this valuable asset. We can’t fall behind China or Russia!
J. Allow the construction of the gas pipeline from Canada to start again ASAP. This not only generates immediate jobs, but it also reduces our dependence on oil from countries who hate us.
K. Shale oil in the west. We must work to develop this valuable resource. Some experts claim there is at least a 200 year supply of oil and natural gas there. The lowest estimates I’ve seen is a 100 year supply. One of the excuses for not developing that resource is the amount of electricity required. Sounds like a good area to build a couple of Nuclear Power plants then, which creates JOBS!
L. Optimism. Our leadership from the President on down needs to start spreading hope. As bad as the economy was when Ronald Reagan took office he was ALWAYS positive. The same with JFK. We need leaders with vision. Leaders who can look at things like the above from a common sense stand point, develop a plan and assure the American people it will work and that America is going to be ok.
Sounds simple doesn’t it? Fortunately living in the USA most of our problems are simple to resolve. Our Founders, and Our God saw to that. As I often say when I Preach, “Life is really pretty simple, its us humans who tend to complicate it”. God has richly Blessed those of us who are fortunate enough to be born here, or to immigrate here. We owe it to Him, and to our children and grandchildren to pass on a country that provides all the freedoms and opportunity’s we have enjoyed. We owe it to those poor souls who live in places like Darfur, Somalia, North Korea, etc.. to take advantage of what God has Blessed us with. The poor in those countries can’t even imagine the wealth of the poor in America.
We need to get back in our Churches. So many people thru out the world have to hide their Bibles. Many only have a few pages torn from Bibles they cherish. Many have nothing. They have to rely only on what they hear from Missionaries. We have more Churches than ever before yet many of them have empty pews and parking lots. 85% of us according to polls say we are Christians, its time we start acting like it again!
If we put God back in charge of this country again. If we hold our elected leaders accountable to do things like those I listed, America will once again be the Country everyone else wants to be like!
If you don’t like the list I made, make your own! Send it to your elected officials! Get involved! Get on your knees and Thank God for allowing you to live in this Great Country He provided! Then get up and get active! This country has been good to the wealthiest of us and to the poorest. I’ve lived well off partly because of hard work, but mostly because of God Blessing me to be born in this country. Since my accident I’ve lived in what many Americans would consider poverty. I’ll take living in poverty in the USA over wealth in most other countries!!!
In His Service,
Brother Danny
